Braised Pork Belly with Ginger-Caramel sauce

Adapted from Reuben cooks "food is time travel"

Pork Belly was not one of my favorites, but one that fits my husband extremely to the heart.  It is therefore that I wanted to perfect this dish as he usually orders pork belly at some of our favorite restaurants which include The Attic in Parkhurst.  I wanted to capture this dish with all the flavors and textures involved.  When I started off I knew this was going to be something new and something that I have not attempted before, but thought I would give it ago anyway.

Tonight I feel like Julie in my most popular movie Julie and Julia 2009 where she comes home after a horrible day from work, and says to her husband:

"You know what I love about cooking? I love that after a day when nothing is sure and when I say nothing, I mean nothing. You can come home and absolutely know that if you add egg yolks to chocolate and sugar and milk, it will get thick. That's such a comfort."

Again I tried a recipe from Reuben Riffel as I was SO amazed by the yummy French Onion soup that when I saw the picture in his book and the ingredients I just knew I had to try it out!  One thing that I must say about Reuben's cookbook is that it's fancy food without any fuss, easy recipes and not a a lot of ingredients per recipe.  I love experimenting and smelling the flavors and I get teached at cooking class that one must taste the herbs and new ingredients to see what it is going to do to your dish.  I also did some research on other blogs and websites and found a very interesting blog http://almostbourdain.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.htmlh - with absolutely brilliant pictures "almost bourdain" twice cooked pork belly that I will most definitely try in the future!  

I think the choice of recipe for me was in the interesting sauce as I love "taste explosions" if you can call it that, and the thing is, once you've eaten like this at home there is no way you can expect this from all restaurants without being disappointed unfortunately.  This is my passion, and I am going to give it my best and even if all I am getting from this is to reflect on the promise to myself to educate and enjoy myself every step of the way, and to look back to what I have achieved, this dream that will be ticked of my "Bucket-list" as my BEST friend and writer Marion Erskine always say.

At first, I did not really know what to do with this round piece of meat (all rolled up with string), Woolies bought (next time I will visit my butcher).  I placed it in a small oven tray that it fits fairly snugly. 

500g pork belly 

2 cups chicken stock

Peel of 1 orange 

1 cup soy sauce

1 small piece fresh ginger, peeled and chopped

1 star anise

1 small cinnamon stick

1/2 cup sugar

Peanut oil for roasting

Lime Quarters, to serve

I mixed the stock, orange peel, soy sauce, ginger, star anise, cinnamon stick and sugar together, poured it over and covered it with foil.  I then roasted it for 3.5hours.  Then transferred the pork (out of the sticky yummy red marinade) into a plastic container, about the same size, left a little stock at the bottom and closed and put a brick on top to make it flat. (very interesting).  Needs to be in fridge for 3hours or over night.  We left it over night.  

One then just heat the oven to 180 degrees, cut the pork belly in squares (depending on how big you would want it) and then roast it until crispy on each side for 10min.  First it is skin-side down, the roasting tray lightly brushed with peanut/sunflower oil.  

The super yummy sauce, sticky, chilly, ginger, fish sauce, limey recipe is:

Ginger-caramel sauce

1/4 cup palm sugar (I used Demerara sugar)

1/4 cup water

2 red and 2 green chillies (I used a teaspoon green chillies)

2 Tablespoons crushed ginger ( I used Robertson's new Ginger paste - which I think is amazing because it does not have the ginger strands)

4 Tablespoons Thai Fish Sauce (I only used 2)

and the juice of 2 limes (I used 1 large)

Method

In a saucepan, slowly bring the palm sugar and water to the boil.  Simmer until the mixture starts to caramelize.  Add the chillies, ginger, Thai fish sauce and lime and cook slowly for 2more minutes.

Whala!

The meat was extremely tender and warm gingery, aniseed, "cinnamoney" like, almost like Peking duck. The fat was soft and was like butter melted on your tongue.  Rich, but the sauce with the lime and the chilies cut through that.  I served it with fresh green asparagus, Broad beans and Edame Beans witch was boiled in a little salt water for 4min, then put in cold water, re-heated with a little melted butter and roasted pumpkin.

I want to say goodnight with another quote for my husband whom supports me with my efforts and even helps with the cooking and photography even if it's only watching with one eye..."You are the butter to my bread, and the breath to my life!" - Paul Child